


Romantic, Right

by orphan_account



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, M/M, also three-way cuddling, excessive cherry blossom imagery, i'm only a little joking about the three-way cuddling, rin trying to be a really good older brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ “I, um, borrowed your shampoo,” Makoto said when he finally extracted himself from the bathroom, feeling at least clean and fresh. There was a pleasant tingling in his fingers that had everything to do with a hot shower after being out in the cold and <i>nothing</i> to do with how soft Rin’s clothes were. ]</p><p>Haru is a pool connoisseur. Makoto tries to negotiate pool usage with Samezuka. Rin tries to become a Makoto-level onii-chan for Kou. Nitori tries to take good care of his senpai. A lot of cherry blossoms happen in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romantic, Right

One would think Haruka would be over here more, in the middle of winter, floating in bliss in the wide open blue of Samezuka’s indoor pool. But it turns out that even Haru has his limits, and that limit - apparently - was betrayal.

It was around four o’clock, Makoto recalls, when Haru realized that the long, tedious meeting about use of the beautiful Olympic-sized pool would not result in immediate usage of said pool, and the instant dampening effect of this realization on the entire office was not lost even to Mikoshiba-buchou.

“- can’t have me back so easily,” was all Makoto managed to get out of him for the first hour or so afterwards, along with a million dollar pout and a blank refusal to look anyone in the eye. He’d only sighed. Haru-chan (and he’d definitely reverted to being Haru- _chan_ the minute they got home, petulant lower lip sticking out in a way that was barely legal, his brow furrowed and an immense degree of childish refusal to see a solution in his eyes) _was_ awfully stubborn when it came to the water. Usually the stubbornness was aimed, frown in hand, towards anyone who tried to get him out of it. Looking at Haru like this, his hair distastefully dry, a piece of comfort mackerel held firmly between his chopsticks, staring into his bowl of rice with such intensity, was singularly alarming.

“I’m _sorry_ , Haru-chan,” Makoto had said, fighting to keep the exasperation out of his voice, while Nagisa (who had not been present at the time of the Incident) voiced out loud his theories, all thirty-three of them, including one featuring a really violent pool noodle and an unfortunate chemical accident. Further prodding about chemical accidents had accidentally resulted in a twenty-minute discourse from Rei about chemistry and molecular beauty, all of which was completely lost on Makoto and Nagisa, and not only that, their soup had cooled. “I didn’t know the meeting was going to take all day, like that - you didn’t have to come with me, you know, there are plenty of indoor pools in the rest of Iwatobi.”

And that was when Haru-chan’s eyes began watering. Down went his head into his arms, dinner be damned.

“Waaahhhhhh _is Haru-chan crying_? I’m sorry I talked about the pool noodle like that,” Nagisa exclaimed, worry stamped all over his face. It was a cute look, when taken out of context. Makoto wondered if Nagisa would simply stop there. But Nagisa, of course, did not. “But, I mean, sometimes if you tip something too much one way, it becomes its opposite, you know, like lighting something on fire for too long, and it would melt. Like Rei-chan!”

Rei wisely chose to take a spoonful of cold soup.

“I was so close,” came a muffled voice from behind the confines of Haru’s slender arms. “The water was so clear and beautiful…” But he raised his head, after a moment, regarding Makoto with those wide blue eyes. “Makoto,” he said, his voice twenty shades of soft, and his fingers reached out to grab onto Makoto’s shirt. The little tug Makoto felt around his torso was incredibly endearing. And incredibly alarming.

Makoto distinctly heard Rei mumble _beautiful_ , but thankfully, Haru didn’t seem to react.

“Makoto,” he had repeated, louder, and then took a deep breath, setting down his chopsticks. Nagisa fell silent, because Haru’s voice still wobbled a little, and a moment later, cracked, “Am I a shallow person?” (The crack would happen on the word shallow, Makoto later convinced himself, instead of on the word person, because he firmly believed that Haru would one day realize that he himself would never be an actual pool, no matter how hard he tried.)

There was a collective clatter of chopsticks hitting ceramic bowls. _Ping ping ping ping ping!_

“No, not at all,” Makoto rushed to say, choking back a surge of sadness at the thought that Haru would even think about something like that, “You’re not shallow. You never judge on appearances. Why would you think that?”

“Because…” Makoto could picture Haru’s inner struggle. He mentally encouraged his friend to blaze through it. Just keep swimming, Haru-chan. Almost there. Haru’s mouth opened, and closed, and opened again, and he at last managed to rasp out, “because I think Samezuka’s pool is more beautiful than the other pools, and that isn’t fair to the water.”

Nagisa frowned, Rei managed a sort of inverted-choking action - judging from the way a grain of rice flew across the table and landed right next to a piece of celery that Nagisa had “dropped” - and Makoto tried very hard to remember the last discussion they had that was similar to this one. Something about fish tanks, and various types of seaweed, and “Makoto, I don’t like seaweed, does that mean my feelings towards the water are not pure?”

Rei, recovering, spoke up at that moment. “It’s not too late, Haruka-senpai.”

Makoto never thought he’d see a slow-motion head whip in real life, but Haru always managed to surprise him in the end.

“What do you mean, Rei,” Haru-chan queried in liquid tones of wonder.

“You can still experience the beauty of the other pools, Haruka-senpai,” Rei intoned passionately, his glasses flashing brilliantly in the light. Nagisa made a noise of assent. Makoto looked confused for exactly two point eight four seconds before the implications hit him.

“Rei’s right, Haru-chan,” he’d agreed, “you can swim at another pool while I meet with Mikoshiba-buchou and Kou-chan next week, to go over long-term regulations for pool usage.”

Haru (Haru again, quiet and occasionally sensible and thoughtful - perhaps a little _too_ thoughtful) mulled this over for a good twenty minutes, apparently assessing the costs and benefits of swimming, diving into the welcoming chlorine-scented depths of a non-Samezuka pool, having an entire day to swim, swimming without the familiar loom of the locker rooms in the distance -

\--------------

And that was how Makoto came to be crouched low over a clipboard come Saturday afternoon, his eyes strained and itching, hammering out a schedule for joint practices and trying to ignore the fact that Mikoshiba-buchou definitely stood at least three centimeters taller than himself, and the fact that the lights in the locker room flickered and _gleamed off his teeth_ whenever he smiled down at Kou-chan, which was very often indeed, and the fact that Rin appeared every three minutes to breathe down Mikoshiba-buchou’s neck, despite having to stand practically on tip-toes to do so.

In fact, Rin was straining himself an awful lot today.

“Onii-chan, you don’t even have practice today,” Kou-chan remarked the twelfth time this happened, as Rin stalked out of the locker room with a growl of frustration, after determining that Mikoshiba-buchou’s hand remained further than four inches away from any part of Kou at all times.

The door slammed shut.

Kou put a hand on Mikoshiba-buchou’s shoulder. “Onii-chan will get better,” she assured him kindly.

“I wish he’d stop slamming the door,” was all Mikoshiba-buchou said in response to this, at first, but then he grew braver, commenting on “Gou-kun, that’s a pretty necklace,” (- “please don’t say ‘Gou’ and ‘kun’ in the same sentence”) and “your hair looks cute today,” while Makoto squinted at the fine print on the clipboard, trying to decide if anyone in Iwatobi would drop cake crumbs in the locker room. Nagisa, maybe. Nagisa _is_ a bit of a messy eater. But Nagisa also never leaves crumbs, claiming it as a cold-blooded crime towards cake-lovers everywhere.

He must have spoken out loud, because Mikoshiba-buchou looked at him with a sympathetic expression and explained patiently that the head coach had a mortal fear of cockroaches, and that most people had a mortal fear of the head coach, and therefore the two paths should cross as least often as possible.

“Nagisa-kun won’t be allowed to bring cake into the locker rooms at all, and that’s final,” Kou-chan eventually decided, after Makoto proposed fourteen alternate plans - he _was_ pretty good at getting out of trouble, given how many times he’d had to talk an authority figure out of giving Haru a criminal record to flaunt as another display of his love for water - for diverting the head coach’s attention, “I’ll carry protein shakes and other snack foods _on my person_ and if he gets hungry, he’ll just have to ask.”

Makoto signed his sixth form wearily. Did his signature always look like that? No, right? His handwriting was generally considered neat - it kind of had to be, since he helped Ren and Ran with their kanji all the time, and he had to set a good example - but this was the sixth signature in the past fifteen minutes, and, oh _no_ , had he missed a line in that character?

Mikoshiba-buchou pulled the form away with what could be best described as _relish_ and declared the meeting adjourned.

Kou-chan cheered. “I’ll have contracts from the rest of the club by next Saturday,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together, and stretched out her limbs, and tossed a bright, happy smile at Mikoshiba before leaving the room, her thumbs already flying over the keypad on her phone.

Makoto thought that the light gleamed off her teeth for a moment, too, colliding with the brightness coming from Mikoshiba’s smile head on, and prayed very hard that Rin was not currently in the vicinity.

By the time he and Mikoshiba-buchou had discussed training regimens for another hour and a half - wow, Mikoshiba-buchou was full of good ideas, and a lot more experience, and he was _awfully_ generous with his tips, now that Makoto thought about it - it was dark outside.

“I’ll see you next Saturday, Tachibana, and I’ll email you the nutritionally balanced diet Gou-kun mentioned, it’s in an online magazine that we both subscribe to.”

Wow. Makoto bowed as deeply as he could, to convey his gratitude, and stepped out of the locker room at last. Immediately, an even stronger scent of chlorine washed over him. Along with Rin, who clambored out of the water with a cheerful smile that immediately melted into a scowl. Makoto wondered, for a moment, why that smile disappeared so quickly, and then realized that Mikoshiba-buchou was just walking out of the pool area. Even his _walk_ was confident and helpful. Mikoshiba-buchou was the type of person who wore fire patterned speedos, the exact type of boisterous, strong, leader-type of guy that Rin wanted to keep Kou-chan away from. Speaking of Rin -

“Still training, Rin?” Makoto asked in mild surprise.

“No,” Rin replied, twisting so that he’s sitting on the edge of the pool again. “Gou -”

“Makoto-senpai are you coming on the train with me?” Kou called out from the shadows, apparently just getting off a proper analytical session with Hanamura-san on the phone. Makoto took a look at Kou, and then took a look at Rin, and replied that, no, he’ll catch a later train, Haru should be fine if he’s still in the pool. The mention of Haru made Kou-chan’s eyes go wide, and she turned and ran out, yelling something about having texted Nagisa earlier that day, and please let there not be any pool noodles involved this time.

Rin narrowed his eyes. Makoto stared hard at the exit.

It was just the two of them at the pool now, Makoto fidgeting with the hem of his jacket, Rin playing aimlessly with the water. Makoto waited patiently for Rin to talk. He watched for the telltale signs: the way Rin’s movements grew more and more erratic, his mouth pressed tighter and tighter together.

“He’s not even a _dick_ ,” Rin burst out abruptly, with a violent splash. A few droplets hit Makoto in the chest. “He’s so… he’s so _nice_ to her, I can’t even _complain_ about it, and he fucking said that if we made nationals he would announce his intent to confess to _me_ , so, obviously I’m expecting him to come up to me any fucking _day now_ , but he just keeps smiling at her and acting like - I don’t know, he acts all paternal and shit sometimes and it’s _so creepy_.”

“He doesn’t act that paternal to her,” Makoto said, before his brain caught up with his mouth, mostly because he was busy marveling at Mikoshiba-buchou being that kind of traditional gentleman; did people still ask for permission for this kind of thing? He look up to see Rin glaring at him, murderous, shark teeth grinding in anger. Ah.

“Are you telling me he acts _like a boyfriend_ , then,” and Makoto’s surprised the words even made it out of his mouth, given how tightly his jaw was clenched.

Before he could say anything else, Rin went, “Makoto, race with me,” and disappeared into the water.

“I didn’t bring swimming trunks,” Makoto said.

“What kind of swim captain doesn’t have them on his person at all times?”

“The normal kind!” Makoto protested, and then: “You know I’m never going to beat you, Rin, isn’t Haru the one you want to race?”

“I know that,” Rin replied, confidence dripping from his face along with a stream of water, “but you can stand to look less like a new recruit and more like a swim captain during meets.”

Makoto swallowed, heat flushing his face. He knows he’s not Haru, or Rin, and probably not even gifted enough to make it onto Samezuka’s swim team, but he’d never felt like his swimming was _inadequate_ , either - or so he thought - and in a moment, he looked up to see Rin standing  in front of him, and he thought, fleetingly, that Rin might have touched his cheek.

“That’s not what I meant. I just think you’re wasting all your focus on Haru.” His eyebrow flickered. “Haru’s not going to swim competitively, not the same way I am. That’s why I gotta beat him,” and a hint of his grin came back, although it’s still dripping, kind of like the water that’s trailing down the hard lines of his chest, not that Makoto is _looking_ or anything, “but you don’t have to get left behind, either.”

“I’m not getting left behind -”

“Just swim with me, Makoto,” Rin snapped. “You can borrow a pair of my trunks.”

Three minutes later, Makoto was adjusting the waistband of Rin’s jammers around his hips and leaping into the pool. Rin laughed when the splash hit him in the face, and for a moment, they were twelve again, there’s no Australia, there’s no relay, just laughter echoing off the high, arching ceiling, and a splash blurring the years of separation between two good friends..

\--------------

“You need to work on your front crawl,” Rin said critically, “unless you want to end up like Haru.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ending up like Haru,” Makoto responded immediately, automatically, even though in the deepest recesses of his heart, he knew that wasn’t true. There were plenty of things he wanted that were different from what Haru wanted. Things like kittens, and a stable job, and to spend the occasional day out of the pool, and some fruit after dinner would be nice, why don’t they eat fruit after dinner more often? (The answer was there, too, crawling like a particularly unwanted worm out of his cotton candy fluff heart: because fruit, no matter how good it was, just didn’t taste right after a barrage of mackerel, and he had been rather put off by the prospect of pineapples for the past _year_ for that very reason.)

Rin frowned and changed the subject. “Come on, Makoto, you need to be _flexible_ , you’re the captain. Three more laps.”

Three laps later, he again commanded, with no small amount of satisfaction, “Three more laps.”

“Rin, I didn’t even warm up,” Makoto said, panting, hoisting himself halfway out of the water.

“You haven’t even done a quarter of what I swim every day,” Rin shot back. “Come on.”

Makoto decided not to point out the fact that Rin swam what could be best described as an obsessive, potentially unhealthy amount every day, and that Australia had probably done something strange and terrifying to his endurance, and manfully soldiered his way through the next three laps, his arms screaming the entire way.

Three laps after _that_ , when Makoto was just about ready to fall asleep in the water, Rin said, “Last one.”

“Riiiiin.”

“I’ll treat you to dinner if you do this. Ai makes really good green curry.” Makoto looked up, floating on his back, his eyes widening, because in his recollection, he had never mentioned green curry to Rin, and he wondered if the water was just distorting his hearing. The thought invited skepticism into his expression.

“Did you even ask Nitori-san if he would mind cooking for us?”

“He’ll do it,” Rin said confidently, “So you should, too. Don’t waste Ai’s hospitality.”

 _Whose hospitality are we really wasting_ , Makoto thought with a sigh, but he strained and struggled through a last lap anyway, sailing through the clear water of the pool at the approximate speed of a very feeble beatle, trying his best to find that peace, that _free feeling_ , that he had at the relay, that he lost almost the very next day, shoved back into the gruelling daily life of captain meetings and finances and homework and _well, you got yourselves disqualified, and while it was a very admirable thing to do for your friend, Tachibana-kun, as a captain you really should have thought more about the future of this club_.

His hand touched the wall.

Rin’s eyes glittered down at him, turned wine-colored from the water’s reflection. “You wanna do backstroke now?” he asks.

“Rin, _no_.”

Perhaps it was fortunate that Mikoshiba-buchou appeared at that moment, his tall, strong, three-probably-four-centimeters-taller-than-Makoto frame silhouetted dramatically in the new burst of lighting. “Oi, what the hell are you two still doing here? Tachibana, you’re not even supposed to be here right now. Matsuoka, you’re going to strain your muscles swimming like that, we don’t have Saturday practice for a reason.”

Makoto scrambled out of the pool in a way that suggested being less tired than he thought he was.

Rin took his time. He dawdled, glowering at Mikoshiba-buchou. The water went _drip drip drip_ threateningly down the point of his chin.

Mikoshiba-buchou said then, with a very small amount of sympathy and a large degree of flatness, “I need to lock this place up, you’ll have to shower in the dorms.”

The glower followed Mikoshiba-buchou the entire way out, even while they pulled on their clothes. Makoto could feel it boring through the walls of the locker room as they argued over a pair of sweatpants.

“They’re too short on me anyway, Rin,” Makoto pointed out, “It’s not that cold outside, and it’s not that far from your dorm, right?”

“Makoto, just put them on, I have an _extra pair_.”

“I brought pants with me -”

“Makoto.”

In the end, Makoto pulled on Rin’s extra sweatpants with a sad sigh, but insisted on giving his scarf to Rin to keep him warm, and let Rin lead him out the door.

\--------------

“Rin, where are we going?”

“Back to my dorm, obviously.”

“I thought you were going to take me to the train station?”

“I thought I was making Ai make us dinner,” Rin objected, a hint of the glower coming back.

“You really don’t have to, I’m sure Nitori-san is busy today,” Makoto began, with what he hoped was a polite tone, but Rin turned him down a street sharply.

“It’s fine, he owes me a dinner for helping him with his homework anyway, and for cleaning up his side of the room on Thursday.” He exhaled loudly. “He has even more stuffed animals than _Gou_ , can you believe that?”

“... Actually, yeah,” Makoto laughed. “Something about you just inspires stuffed animals. Remember when we were little and Nagisa’s sister took us to the mall and you won that stuffed penguin in one of those toy-snatcher machines - and Nagisa cried so much that we each ended up buying him something?”

“He carried that fucking penguin around to practice for a _week_.” Rin crossed his arms tightly, glad of the scarf around his neck. “It was _my_ penguin. I just let him borrow it.” Makoto laughed again, and Rin gave a grudging smile before a companionable silence settled in a warm, cozy layer over the cold. It was nice. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like, to be friends with Rin - just Rin, without Haru’s baleful, water-deprived stare cutting between them - and he wondered, idly, why this didn’t happen more often.

And then Makoto _felt_ , rather than _saw_ , Rin’s eyes narrow. It was the same kind of feeling he utilized when Haru’s eyes glinted in the general direction of a body of water - there was just _that chill_ in the air, the shift - maybe he should consider Nagisa’s questions about him having a real sixth sense a little more seriously. At any rate, Rin’s eyes narrowed, and his walk slowed just a little bit, indicating that he was either about to punch something, or start talking again.

“It’s just, _Gou_ ,” Rin said, and unwound one of his arms to furiously rub at his hair.

“Kou-chan is more than capable of taking care of herself,” Makoto attempted, trying to derail the explosion he knew was coming, lest they burst into the room and take Nitori-san down as a casualty. The kid was awfully susceptible to crying, kind of in a cute way, but Makoto never liked seeing people cry. He hadn’t even liked seeing Nagisa cry, that one time, even when he was laughing gently along with everyone else. Someone was going to have to get in the way of exploding Rin and a possibly terrified Nitori-san, and since Makoto was the only one in the vicinity, he bravely decided to take it upon himself, and braced himself for sudden, viporous movements that Rin was known for.

Instead, Rin took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was softer. “I just - she won’t talk to me about it, you know? She hasn’t talked to me about almost anything since I came home, really, just - Haru-this, Haru-that. Hell, _Mikoshiba_ talks to me more about this than Gou does and -”

“Maybe,” Makoto began, hesitant, “maybe, she was just looking out for you.”

“In what way,” Rin snarled, and then pressed his fingers into his temple.

Makoto considered backing down. He really did. But hadn’t Rin just taught him to push himself in the pool? So he continued, schooling his voice to be gentle as possible. “Kou-chan… was really worried about you, Rin. You were kind of, you know, a little -”

Rin inhaled, sharp.

“- and, you didn’t really, um, react to anything unless it was Haru-related, so, maybe Kou-chan _was_ trying to talk to you, in her own way, by starting off with something that she knew you were interested in?”

That was definitely a flared nostril. Makoto wisely didn’t say any more on the subject.

\--------------

When they walked into the room, Nitori-san was out; his desk was only faintly cluttered thanks to Rin’s recent cleaning, and there was a note lying on Rin’s desk informing him that he’d gone out “on a run and would be back later, along with the fresh lemons Matsuoka-senpai asked for.”

The hard jut of Rin’s chin relaxed itself as he stripped off the scarf and handed it back to Makoto. “Bathroom’s that way,” he indicated, taking off his shoes.

“Oh, you can go ahead, it’s your bathroom.”

“Makoto, just take your fucking shower so you don’t smell like chlorine the whole way home.”

Makoto went. He closed the door behind him and peeled off Rin’s sweatpants, which were unpleasantly cold and damp on the inside and smelled like chlorine. He considered, briefly, washing them out, but the truth of the matter was that Makoto was kind of awful at housework, laundry included, and so ended up dropping them in the laundry basket.

And then he caught sight of Rin’s swimwear clinging to his own leg, and didn’t _that_ have an interest effect on him, especially because they were kind of, maybe, a little short, black and red like many of his other clothes, and Makoto definitely was not used to wearing anything black and red at all.  He turned on the hot water, peeled off the rest of his clothes, and stepped in.

The water here was _nice_ , not too hot, not too cold, the pressure from the showerhead just right. His hand lingered over the shampoo. One of them, he supposed, was Nitori-san’s. The other was Rin’s.

He was in Rin’s bathroom, using Rin’s shower, probably about to borrow Rin’s shampoo.

Makoto closed his eyes and his hand closed around the red bottle. He scrubbed his hair _very hard_ and thoroughly, until the chlorine scent was completely out, and the bathroom was kind of steamy, enough so that the mirror was fogged up when he stepped out and snatched a towel from the rack. They had a lot of towels, most of them clinically white and feeling a little starchy, except for a pale yellow one hung messily from the sliding door. Nitori-san’s, probably.

And that was when Makoto realized that he’d dove into the shower without taking clean clothes with him.

He rapped his knuckles against the door. “Uh… Rin?”

Rin’s voice came from impatiently on the other side of the door. “What.”

“Sorry, um…” At least the bathroom was still warm. “Could you hand me my bag?”

“Huh?”

“My clothes!” Makoto babbled out. “My clothes are in there! I forgot to take it with me.”

The door radiated an ominous silence for a few seconds, and when Rin next spoke, there was a definite strained quality to his voice. “Makoto, they’re not in here.”

“What,” Makoto squeaked. He looked disconsolately at the towel wrapped around his waist.

“You left them in the locker room, didn’t you.”

“Oh… oh my God. I did, didn’t I?”

A sigh emitted from the other side of the door. “Nevermind, you can borrow another set of sweatpants, I have a lot.”

“...Thank you, Rin,” he croaked.

“I’m, ah, going to open the door,” Rin said in tones of extreme delicacy. Makoto didn’t know why he felt equally as delicate; they were both _swimmers_ , it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen Rin naked a hundred times when they were kids. But - oh God, his hair smelled like cherry blossoms, Rin used _cherry blossom shampoo_ , and the heat in the bathroom had flushed his skin into a healthy, glowing pink, something was definitely off about this entire situation.

Rin opened the door a crack. Makoto grasped the offered clothes with the rest of his body hidden safely behind the door, and was sorry to see a pair of boxers included in the set.

“Just return them next week when you finish your laundry,” Rin mumbled, so delicate, like the petals of a flower.

“I, um, borrowed your shampoo,” Makoto said when he finally extracted himself from the bathroom, feeling at least clean and fresh. There was a pleasant tingling in his fingers that had everything to do with a hot shower after being out in the cold and _nothing_ to do with how soft Rin’s clothes were. And they fit him pretty well, actually.

“S’fine,” Rin muttered.

A staring contest ensued. Neither of them won.

“I’m gonna shower now,” Rin said, finally, “you can, uh, sit. I won’t be long.” He paused. “Don’t be alarmed if Ai comes back.”

“I won’t,” Makoto said hastily.

The bathroom door shut almost silently, as if Rin was trying to maintain the volume level of the room. A minute later, Makoto heard the sounds of running water. He retrieved his phone from his bag and took a careful seat on the edge of Rin’s bed and drummed his fingers against the sheets for a few seconds, on guard in case Nitori-san appeared in the doorway. There were a few text message notifications on his phone screen, and Makoto took a moment to look through them.

> **Kou-chan** : Makoto-senpai! Nagisa and I just dragged Haruka-senpai home. He looks fine.
> 
> **Nagisa** : Operation Expose Haru-chan To More Beauty is going well! (★^O^★) No need to worry Mako-chan we’ll take care of him.
> 
> **Mom** : MAKONII THIS IS REN AND RAN WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME FOR DINNER
> 
> **Mom** : Give me the phone, Ran.
> 
> **Mom** : No!
> 
> **Mom** : Mako-nii Ran is being unfair.
> 
> **Mom** : Your mom invited me over for dinner. Are you going to be here?

Makoto stared at the screen, and began to text back, telling Kou-chan good job (oh and, Rin is doing well, see you Monday at school), and sending Nagisa a long row of question marks, and wearily opening up his message log with his mother.

> _I’m going to eat at Samezuka, sorry for the short notice! Please enjoy your dinner._

Not ten seconds later, a reply came back.

> **Mom** : We’re having mackerel.

_One day_ , Makoto thought despairingly. _One day Haru will voluntarily cook or eat something other than mackerel. And how could Okaa-san just go along with all this? I’ve told her about Haru’s mackerel diet, she even agreed that it would be more healthy to balance it out with other forms of protein!_ But instead of calling home, or even asking Haru why he couldn’t just take his own phone to text people with, all he sent was:

> _Don’t forget to eat vegetables too, Haru-chan._

Not even a minute later, he was asleep.

\--------------

When Rin got out of the shower, a towel draped artfully over his head, he was not prepared to see Makoto sprawled out fast asleep on his bed.

“Oi… Makoto,” he mumbled, crouching a little to avoid crashing his head into the top bunk. His hand stilled a mere centimeter from Makoto’s shoulder. “Did you forget about dinner?”

There was no response.

 _Ah, well, I guess I did make him swim a lot today_ …

He frowned and yanked on his blanket, wrapping one end over Makoto’s body. Makoto was _heavy_. All those muscles were real after all, huh. Rin glanced at the clock. Nitori still wasn’t back yet, funny.

Something lit up. Makoto’s phone. Rin picked it up and placed it on his desk, proud of the fact that he did _not_ look to see what notification it was. Instead, he slid his own phone out of his backpack and started typing out a message to Nitori, asking him where he was, and adding that it was fine, just come straight home and they could go pick up the damned lemons later.

Halfway through his typing, a message from Nitori appeared.

> _Matsuokasenpaisorry!_

Rin frowned harder and sat down on his bed, next to Makoto’s still-sleeping form.

> _What_.

Ai was a fast texter, he'll give him that. Several messages popped up into the log in quick succession.

> **Ai** : I ran into a few of my middle school friends and we saw a bunch of bunnies on the road, they were really cute and then we discovered that they were lost pets so we decided to look for their owners! I don’t think I’ll be back until late…
> 
> **Ai** : I’ll make it up to you senpai I promise!
> 
> **Ai** : Ah, I have to run!
> 
> **Ai** : See you in a bit senpai!
> 
> **Ai** : I’ll go to the store before it closes!
> 
> **Ai** : I happened to find a tutorial for those honey lemon snacks online, so don’t worry, I’ll make them for senpai!
> 
> **Rin** : Ai don’t you have somewhere to be running to

He set his phone down and laid his head on the pillow, forgetting for a moment that Makoto was still there, and instead starting to worry about dinner. The cafeteria was closed by now, and if he really wanted to, he could run out to the convenience store and get something… and he could get Makoto something, too, he _did_ say dinner would be on him. Maybe he could order takeout or something. There was a pretty good pizza delivery down the street, it would only take twenty minutes or so, half an hour tops…

Makoto made a sleepy noise and flipped over onto his stomach, rolling himself up tighter into the blanket. Rin, at that moment, caught a strong whiff of cherry blossom, along with a strong wave of sleepiness.

Ah, it smelled good. (Of course it smelled good. It was _his_ shampoo, after all, a lot better than that coconut or tropical stuff that Ai was so into.) Especially mixed in with the warmth of Makoto himself. Rin laid there and just breathed for a few moments, letting himself relax into a sleepy haze, lulled by the pleasant scents, snuggling into Makoto’s shoulder as the towel fluttered to the floor -

Wait, what?

Rin tried to take more of his blanket back. Makoto didn’t budge.

“Wake up, Makoto,” he tried again, but it was a halfhearted attempt, and a minute later, he had wedged himself tightly into the space between Makoto and the bed for warmth, fast asleep.

It was telling, he supposed, that his last thought before drifting off was _fuck me. IT. FUCK IT._

\--------------

When Makoto opened his eyes, it was almost midnight. The only reason he knew this was because the phone screen that was right in front of his face lit up with an email notification from Mikoshiba-buchou. An email about the weekly training regimen. And it was 11:43 PM.

And it wasn’t his phone. It was most definitely Rin’s phone.

He tried to lift his arms and they felt heavy, not only because the soreness from his impromptu swim from earlier was kicking in, but because they were actually… heavy?

Makoto lifted his head up slightly and realized that there were three blankets piled on top of him, along with three pillows and another body.

He said, “huh?”

And he very nearly screamed when Nitori-san’s voice thudded into his head. “Tachibana-san!! You’re awake!! Did you sleep well? You looked kind of cold so I gave you all of my blankets -”

Nitori-san was in the top bunk, with his head peeking out over the side and down towards the bottom bunk, a cheerful (and bright, _too bright_ , did everyone at Samezuka use the same type of toothpaste?) smile gracing his face, and all the lights were on in the room.

Makoto’s eyelids were heavy, almost heavier than his arms, like Nitori-san had put all those blankets on his face instead. He decided to concentrate on getting one eye open at a time. “Uh… Nitori… ….. san?”

“Ah, I guess you’re still kind of sleepy. I thought about waking Tachibana-san up but, it was kind of hard to get Matsuoka-senpai out of the way, and it’s Saturday, you know, so -”

“Matsuoka…???????” Makoto stared, first at Nitori-san and his wide, innocent blue eyes, and then at the red hair splayed across the pillow. Rin. Who was fast asleep, sprawled half on top of him, his long legs slipping off the bed that was definitely, most definitely, meant for one person instead of two. Rin slept facing him, his chin tucked in, giving Makoto an excellent view of his eyelashes and none of his teeth.

It took exactly three seconds for Makoto to realize how soft his expression was, and he immediately turned his attention back to Nitori-san. “Should I wake him up?”

As if Nitori-san would know the answer! Not even Haru would know what to do in this situation, probably.

“I’m awake,” they both heard Rin slur, very softly, his voice a few pitches deeper. And then: “Shit, Makoto? What are you doing here?”

“I… missed my train?” Makoto asked weakly in reply. Rin sat up very quickly, knocked his head into Nitori’s bunk, and went back down swearing. “Oh my God Rin are you okay?” He brushed his fingers across Rin’s forehead. “Thank goodness you didn’t cut yourself, please be a little careful waking up next time.”

“Wow, Tachibana-san is as caring as Nagisa-kun said,” Nitori-san remarked, thoughtfully, and Makoto had a sudden, distinct impression that Nitori-san was looking at the two of them with a certain degree of calculation in his eyes, the type of calculation that he could relate to, the type of calculation he knew was in his own eyes whenever he tried to bargain Haru out of a day at the pool in favor of different, just-as-if-not-more wholesome activities. Nitori-san had the look of someone who wanted to ask Rin something and knew exactly how to go about doing it.

It was just, Makoto thought, that he looked kind of like he wanted to get under the blankets, too.

Nitori-san continued, “I managed to get the lemons after all, senpai! They’re in the freezer! They were on sale so I got four for free!”

Rin scowled and pushed Makoto’s head back down onto the pillow. “Just sleep over tonight, the last train’s gone anyway. Ai, turn off the lights.”

“Okay, senpai!”

Nitori-san slipped off his bunk and landed lightly on the floor. A moment later, the room was plunged into darkness. Makoto waited for the shift of the bunk indicating a person climbing back onto the top, and it never came. A second later, the energetic voice came again.

“Matsuoka… ….Rin-senpai,” it said, with a precise degree of hesitation. “I gave my last blanket to you and Tachibana-san, so do you mind if -”

Makoto felt Rin groan against his throat. It was an intimate sensation, a completely platonic, ticklish, cherry-blossom filtered sensation.

Rin said, “I’m not promising you won’t fall out, Ai,” and Nitori-san took a moment to process this before chirping “Okay, senpai!” and crawling into the blankets with the rest of them. Makoto didn’t exactly know how it happened, but Nitori-san happily pressed his back against Makoto’s back, dragged a fair amount of blanket over the two of them, and went to sleep.

The three of them breathed contentedly together for a few moments. Makoto felt Rin go back to sleep, too, with a soft, “Make that breakfast instead,” before he went.

Makoto exhaled into Rin’s hair. More cherry blossoming happened.

Tomorrow was Sunday, and he’d done all his homework yesterday afternoon in preparation for probably spending his entire weekend at the pool. Tomorrow he would suggest, gently, over what would supposedly be an excellent breakfast, that Rin text Kou-chan a few times, and let Kou-chan know how much he cared about his little sister. For now, he realized, it was warm - not even stifling - in Rin’s bed, the soft felt lining the interiors of Rin’s clothes like a cloud against his skin, and it felt nice to be snuggling in bed, lingering on the edge of sleep.

“Okay,” he whispered, and let himself fall.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a giant unwarranted chronicling of my slow descent into makorin hell. character development to follow. feel free(!) to check for previews/updates @ koukoros on tumblr.


End file.
